John Oliver last night suggested Trump might have inadvertently given the climate movement something they’ve needed from the start.  I’m in total agreement.  It’s easy to see if you look at it in ABT terms.  Trump is the B of the ABT that “the climate narrative” has needed all along.   This is why Al Gore’s boring “And, And, And” (AAA) movie was so sadly misguided.  Narrative is everything.

DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO THANK HIM, but as John Oliver suggests, he has done a favor for the climate movement with the strength and singularity of his contradiction of the entire topic.

EVERY NARRATIVE NEEDS A BUT

John Oliver, on his often-brilliant HBO show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” ended last night’s episode with the following:

JOHN OLIVER:  This week the climate movement may have gotten a symbol to rally around because apparently it was never quite enough to motivate ourselves out of love for this large gassy orb (EARTH photo), but maybe, just maybe we can now motivate ourselves to do something out of our loathing of THIS one (TRUMP photo).

He is absolutely right.

LET’S LOOK AT IT FROM THE ABT PERSPECTIVE

Here’s what John Oliver is saying.  For twenty years all sorts of well meaning people have been boring the holy hell out of the masses with their AAA (“And, And, And”) documentaries and other do-gooder media efforts.  Throughout my first book, “Don’t Be Such A Scientist,” I used Al Gore’s snoozefest, “An Inconvenient Truth,” as an example of poor communication.  Six years later in “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” I went into even more detail about this using the ABT.

Why was all that media so boring?  Because it lacked narrative strength.  How did it lack narrative strength?  It lacked contradiction.  How could it have had contradiction?  By going after the climate skeptics, big time.

Did Al Gore deal with the climate skeptics?  Only in a weak and misguided way.  He dismissed them right off the bat.  In so doing he wasted his entire opportunity to create narrative strength.

Gore dealt with climate skeptics with a single number.  He presented the number of studies examined by Naomi Oreskes in her Science paper and posed the question of how many of them disagreed with the consensus on climate change.  The answer was zero, meaning that in the real science world nobody buys into climate skepticism.  And that was it.  From there on he basically implied that climate skepticism was a trivial topic and never visited it again in the movie.

Big mistake.   That was his potentially powerful source of contradiction.  Factually they might have been a trivial force, but narratively they presented a huge opportunity.  That was wasted.

Even if they were only straw men, they could have been the source of contradiction to drive a good narrative structure and engage the brains of the audience.  The audience could have been on the edge of their seats, asking about the THEREFORE.  As in “Therefore what are we gonna do about them, before we end up with one of them as President?”

But he didn’t take advantage of that because he and the filmmakers were so weak on narrative intuition.

IGNORE THE SKEPTICS AND THEY WILL GO AWAY (NOT)

So is anyone in the climate movement FINALLY ready to accept that “ignore them and they will go away” is not a viable strategy for climate skeptics?  It never was, any more than to ignore the Swift Boat Veterans ever was for John Kerry.  I swear, the instincts of the left are just so bad when it comes to politics.

Trump is now the grand manifestation of the skeptic perspective and that is a potentially good thing, as John Oliver implied.  Yes, there will be some setbacks, but he is the singular source of contradiction that is now bringing the entire ABT of climate into focus.  The climate crowd at least finally knows who and where the enemy is and how to combat them.

Just look at some of the things happening.  The fact that almost all of the major corporations are in support of the Paris Accord is now a huge story.  There have been small articles over the past decade pointing out how both the military and major corporations have accepted climate change as a serious threat, but it’s only now that it’s suddenly a big story, thanks to Trump.  John Oliver pointed out that Walmart, Bank of America and Phillip Morris all support the Paris Accord.  The entire issue is now coming into very clear and simple focus, thanks to Trump.

It could have happened a decade ago, but the people in charge are just too devoid of narrative intuition.  And so now the world has assembled the narrative elements for them.

The question is whether anyone in the movement will actually listen and learn anything.  Or will they just revert to their AAA ways of the past decade.

Honest to goodness, it’s in the news this morning, and it’s all about the ABT.  World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer has been trying to get World Bank folks to reduce their use of the word “and.”  He’s demanded final reports not have “and” be more than 2.6% of total words.  YES!  He gets it!  This is narrative warfare!

“AND” FURTHERMORE …

FROM:  Financial Times, May 26, 2017

THE CHARGE:  EXCESSIVE EXPOSITION

This is a case for the ABT!  World Bank Chief Economist Paul Romer has “stripped of management duties” after sending too many memos trying to combat the plague of “Bankspeak” that exists at the World Bank.  He is my new official hero!

There’s a bunch of articles this week, but this one is perhaps most direct, in Bloomberg News.

Somebody needs to get him a Narrative Spectrum refrigerator magnet.  Paul Romer is a warrior in The War on Boredom!

 

MOVIN’ ON UP

It’s been two years since we ran the first prototypes of Story Circles with NIH and USDA. Back then we were wondering “how will we manage to scale this up?”  The answer will come to life next week in Fort Collins, Colorado.

In January of this year we ran Demo Days in Ft Collins and Lakewood, Colorado. They involved a total of 57 participants. It took a couple of months to do the organizing, but by late March it was clear that enough people were eager and their schedules open to organize 6 Story Circles.

I’ll be going to Ft Collins next Tuesday and Wednesday to help with the launching of each circle. It’s great that we waited two years for this step forward. A year ago I would have been a little nervous about the logistics, but now that we’ve completed 16 Story Circles we’ve got the whole routine down and know how to launch them with no glitches.

TRUE SELF-GUIDED LEARNING

Story Circles is not like a college course. Not at all. Aside from the initial orientation, there are no lectures, no note taking, no readings. It’s just week after week, analyzing material we give you, then analyzing the material of the group members. A few people have called it boring. If you find it boring, you’re not doing it right. A lot of people have called it hard and even draining. If you find it hard and even draining … you’re probably doing it right.

The process really works when you hit the point that you’re spotting the ABT in the real world and finding yourself thinking A LOT about the narrative structure of things around you. Like movies, or newspaper articles, or radio segments, or a presentation you’re attending. That is when Story Circles is starting to work. Not so much during the ten one hour segments, but rather outside of them and in the weeks and months after you finish the last segment.

At this point we’ve had lots of people report back that the training is very, very valuable. And a few who simply didn’t get it. It’s definitely not the happy fun social hours that Jayde Lovell and I originally thought it might be. It’s hard work. But also very effective. Which is why we’re excited about these 6 new circles that will begin next week.

He uses two simple devices to make sure his new hour long Netflix comedy special has structure, moves along, and pays off brilliantly at the end. Narrative matters.

COMIC GENIUS AT WORK.

ADVANCING THE NARRATIVE …

If you’re a fan of Dave Chappelle, as I have been from way back, you’ll love his new stand up comedy special on Netflix that was his first show in LA in over a decade. The material is of course both crude and hilarious, but what’s worth noting are two narrative devices he uses.

The first one needs a tiny bit of a SPOILER ALERT so read no further if you want a completely blank slate in watching it. But it’s actually not much of a spoiler. It’s just that he says at the start he’s going to tell you the stories of the four different times he met O.J. Simpson in person.

When he gets to the end and walks off stage, he’s only told you three of them. I think you can guess what happens.

If you’re a fan of narrative structure, just think of the 5 rules of “archplot” I listed in “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” citing Robert McKee’s 8 rules in his landmark 1997 book, “Story.”  One of them is the need for the “closed ending” where all threads are tied up at the end of the story. Telling only 3 of 4 promised stories leaves the audience member feeling unfulfilled and not ready to go home.

Leaving you with one story untold might actually leave some of the more artistic and intellectually inclined stimulated to go home wondering what that last one was. But most of the masses would just be pissed, wanting to shout out, “Hey, where’s our fourth story?”

Dave Chappelle’s humor is oriented to the masses, not the sophisticates. You can guess what he does.

But the key thing for narrative structure is that with each of the four stories he tells, you can feel him “advancing the narrative.”  This makes the show more than just an “And, And, And” presentation of a bunch of funny bits as you’d get from a lesser comedian. Advancing the narrative is essential to narrative structure.

AND PAYING IT OFF

The other thing is more sophisticated and I don’t want to give it away, but suffice it to say he delivers a prime example of “plant and payoff.” This is a standard part of high quality storytelling.

You’ve seen it in a million movies. Some prop or idea or line is “planted” early in the movie, then “paid off” later when it returns. If you want to read a rundown on this technique, here’s a whole essay from my film school classmate Sean Hood (who by the way is in my upcoming video on Story Circles with AAAS).

So Dave Chappelle sets up something in great detail during the course of the hour long show, then surprises you at the end by bringing it back for his grand synthesis which is hilarious and perfect. He’s working at a level well above the majority of comedians today.

“Will the Science March Wither Away like the Women’s March?” is the headline right now on the website for Science Magazine. Which is a good question with a sad likely answer. Unlike the March for Science, the Women’s March, and probably the upcoming People’s March for Climate (which all have huge turnouts but no new message), the Earth Optimism Summit delivered a clear new message which was, “Time to focus on success.”  The event was a solid success and a case study in how to “advance the narrative” for environmentalism. Kudos to Dr. Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution, the visionary behind the entire Earth Optimism narrative. Whether Earth Optimism actually will change things remains to be seen, but for now, it achieved the essential goal which is “advancing the narrative.”

DONALD TRUMP MAKES GUEST APPEARANCE AT EARTH OPTIMISM. Okay, that’s not really him, but you may recall in 2013 when Bill Maher bet him a million dollars to prove he wasn’t the son of an orangutan. One of the opening presentations of Earth Optimism was guys with an animatronic orangutan (but sadly no Trump jokes).

ADVANCING THE NARRATIVE: IT’S ABOUT HAVING A NEW ARGUMENT TO MAKE

That’s what narrative is about, at its core — having an argument that you keep refreshing over time. The three day Earth Optimism Summit last weekend in Washington DC wasn’t the typical hot air gathering of eggheads. This is because of one main reason: It had a clear new message. The message was, in simple terms, “Enough with the bad news, let’s focus on where we’re succeeding in protecting nature.”

Contrast this with the March for Science which had no clear message except the same old “science is good.” And compare to what you get at most conservation meetings — no clear message other than the obvious one of “we need to save nature” (duh). Earth Optimism had a narrative that calls for a SPECIFIC new action (to focus on success).

I gave a talk at Earth Optimism (EO) on Friday morning titled, “Narrative is Leadership.” My session was titled, “Inspiring Positive Action.” All four of the talks were indeed inspiring. But they also had something in common with every talk, discussion, pointed comment and biting piece of humor at the entire event. They were all about the argument/message that we need to shift the tone from pessimism to optimism, with the suggested mechanism being “focus on success stories.”

THE DEFINITION OF NARRATIVE

In “Houston, We Have A Narrative,” I defined the word “narrative” as “The series of events that occur in the search for a solution to a problem.” If you apply this to EO you see they are on a clear narrative pathway. The PROBLEM is flagging energy for conservation as people are growing tired and demoralized from the bad news. The SOLUTION is a re-energized populace.

Whether the Earth Optimism Summit’s idea of focusing on solutions is even the right way to achieve this solution remains to be seen. But for now, what is important is that EO is “ADVANCING THE NARRATIVE” (an essential element) meaning it is a step along the way in the search to find the solution to the problem. Getting together to complain about the same old defeats in conservation is the definition of NOT advancing the narrative, which eventually bores and demoralizes everyone.

SO WILL THIS WEEKEND’S PEOPLE’S CLIMATE MARCH ADVANCE THE CLIMATE NARRATIVE?

I doubt it. I’m not hearing anything to suggest they are advancing their narrative. All it looks to be is the same old whining about the climate changing and the right is to blame. That was going on a decade ago in the wake of Al Gore’s movie.

It’s actually similar to what the entire Democratic party is doing right now about Trump — not launching new ideas in an effort to advance their narrative (as Trump did with his “Make America Great Again” theme) — just wallowing in the same stuff.

No, the Democrats at the moment are stuck. They are endlessly fact checking, calling their opponents liars, screaming about how unfair it all is, but not advancing their narrative (for example, the Affordable Care Act — why aren’t they proposing their own means of fixing it?). I guarantee you they will never succeed until they get back onto the narrative journey, creating events that will serve as new stepping stones in the search for the solutions to the problems.

As I said on Friday as loudly as possible, NARRATIVE IS LEADERSHIP.

It’s unfortunate, but somebody has to say these things. The March for Science was stunning in the size of the turnout, yet equally stunning in the lack of a message. No one wants to say this, but I will. The message is, “There’s no leadership in science.”  The march wasn’t the doing of the science “leadership” — it was organized by “the troops.” I discussed this on NPR on Friday. An absence of leadership wasn’t a problem in the 1950’s, but it is today.

WHAT DO WE WANT? SOMETHING! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? SOMETIME!

ONE FROM THE GUT

On Saturday I took part in the March for Science in Washington DC. The turnout, despite heavy rain, was stunning and inspiring. It hit me at the gut level — both humor and emotion. Clearly there is a ton of good will at the grassroots level of the science world. But there’s a problem. The leadership is lacking.

I’ve been hitting this note for years and even mentioned it in my 2015 book, “Houston, We Have A Narrative.” It bothered me in the 1980’s when I was a scientist. The profession is run by faceless committees. Which was fine in the pro-science 1950’s and 1960’s, but we’re now in a different era. It’s a problem.

I was on NPR on Friday talking about, “the message” of the March for Science. There was no message. Actually, as Ed Yong identified, there were at least 21 “messages.” But in a world of too much information, that ends up resulting in their being no overall message.

EVERYBODY GO HOME!

The absence of a message on Saturday was abundantly clear. It started in January when the march first arose, not from the ranks of leadership, but from the grassroots level on Reddit. I was on the periphery of the communications team since near the start. They never managed to decide on whether the event was a politicized anti-Trump rally or a happy fun science festival day for the family. It ended up being sort of both, and also neither.

The absence of a message was most apparent on the website where they never did post any sort of slug line or slogan within the artwork. The closest they had was, “Science, Not Silence” (I dare you to say that ten times fast).

The clearest demonstration of a lack of a message was two things:

1 THE END OF THE MARCH –  the march ended in front of the Capitol building. A friend who was at the front told me they got there, everyone was ready for speeches and instructions on what to do, but instead there was just a woman on a loudspeaker saying, “Thanks for coming, all done.” Basically, go home.  No one was told what to do (i.e. “Write your congressman, organize your colleagues”)

2 NO MEDIA TRACTION –  coverage of the march was ephemeral and kind of trivial. The main focus was all the funny signs and science puns. But there was no clear message. Having a message, means having a narrative, which is what the media world feeds on because “media is narrative” as I said in my Friday talk at the Earth Optimism Summit.

THE MESSAGE:  WHERE’S OUR LEADERSHIP?

Q:  What is the official policy of the science world on debating anti-science people?

A:  There is none.

Right now the American Psychological Association is doing a good job telling psychologists to remember The Goldwater Rule (to not publicly evaluate the mental health of politicians in office). That is leadership.

But for the science world, trying to stop CNN from including climate skeptics in their climate “debates” seems to fall on peripheral entertainers like Bill Nye. In 2010 I blogged the recommendation that no one other than comedians debate climate skeptics, but that was just me, not the appointed “leadership” of the science world.

NARRATIVE IS LEADERSHIP

This was the title of my talk on Friday. It’s my message for 2017. It’s what I spoke about to James Carville’s class at Tulane University in January. It’s what I’m preaching now through our Story Circles Narrative Training (which will launch 6 circles next month with National Park Service in Colorado!).

I spoke with a friend yesterday who is a geologist. She told me that only 10 of the 52 member organizations of the American Geosciences Institute (the big umbrella group for geology) supported the march. The others were “put off” by the political tone of the organizers.

Which just confirms the predicament. There is no clear leadership for the profession of science. And that’s a problem, given the anti-science tone of the current administration.

I’m not sure what the solution is, but the one thing I know well is that everything has to start by identifying the problem. Everyone seems to think “the problem” is Trump. But I feel there’s a deeper problem, which is the absence of effective leadership with which to defend the profession. It’s not the end of the world, but is definitely something that needs to be addressed.

The March for Science page should have had a clear slug line on it. It should have asked, “Oh, Leaders, Where Art Thou?”

Anyone surprised? Yes, she’s gorgeous, but when she speaks she ain’t saying much. At least not in narrative terms. The Narrative Index of her speech yesterday at the State Department was 0. One IF, 35 ANDs, no BUTs.

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY — OH, NEVER MIND.

NOT YOUR BEST BEDTIME STORYTELLER

The First Lady gave a speech at the State Department yesterday as part of presenting the International Medal of Courage Award to 13 women. I’m sure it was well received, and it’s not to say that the simple Narrative Index of BUTs to ANDs (times 100) is the definitive word on content, but really … zero?

That’s what she scored. She never said the word BUT though she said AND 35 times. It was pretty much of a perfect And, And, And, (AAA) presentation.

The deeper question is who wrote it? Which of course was the same question raised for her RNC speech last summer, part of which was plagiarized from Michelle Obama. That speech at least had 5 BUTs for an NI score of 7 (though none of the BUTs were in the plagiarized part).

The bottom line is that she speaks the same as she looks. Beautiful but kind of shallow when it comes to content.

If Michael Crichton were alive today he would look at the news of President Trump and just say one thing, “Yep, figures.” His 1999 AAAS keynote address was titled, “Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities.” Among many things, he was offering up advice on how to deal with fake news. He tried. No one listened.

Michael Crichton gave a speech filled with practical advice for the science world. This is a line from his speech. Which fell on deaf ears.

WHAT ARE SPEECHES FOR, WHEN NO ONE LISTENS ANY MORE?

That’s a paraphrasing of “Words,” the old 1980’s song from Missing Persons. And is what Michael Crichton must have felt in response to his 1999 keynote address to the AAAS meeting titled, “Ritual Abuse, Hot Air, and Missed Opportunities.”

The title referred to “ritual abuse” meaning the anger of the science world in feeling misunderstood, “hot air” the fact that most media is just that (so what), and “missed opportunities” — that it really isn’t that hard to use of the media, you just need to do it.

Michael Crichton was a giant of a man, not just physically (at 6’10”) but intellectually. He was a smart guy who left a burgeoning career in medicine to become a bestselling science fiction writer, reaching a peak with his landmark novel, “Jurassic Park.”

Over the years he kept in touch with the science world and by the late 1990’s had plenty of smart things to say given that no one in science had his understanding of mass media. He offered up his wisdom in 1999 as the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of AAAS.  He ended his talk by listing 4 problems and their possible solutions.

He started the last bit of the talk saying, “If I were magically put in charge of improving the status and image of science, I’d start by using the media, instead of feeling victimized by them.”

Look at the quote above in the photo. He knew what was coming. He could have predicted that one day the Presidency would be won by a master media manipulator. He tried to instruct the science world on how the system works. But scientists don’t listen.

CRICHTON’S PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Here’s his specific itemization of major media/image problems faced by science and how to deal with them. Just about none of this was heeded.

THE EARTH OPTIMISM ABT: Earth Day is the largest secular holiday in the world, AND since 1970 has presented the bad news of how we are destroying the planet, BUT bad news takes a toll, THEREFORE this year the Smithsonian Institution is presenting The Earth Optimism Summit which shifts the focus of Earth Day to stories of success.

TIME TO ADVANCE THE NARRATIVE

ALL WE ARE SAYING, IS GIVE OPTIMISM A CHANCE

“We’re destroying nature.”  “We’re killing the planet.”  “Everything is dying.”  “We’re all horrible people.”

That’s been “the narrative” for the environmental movement for over 45 years — since the first Earth Day in 1970.  It was needed in the early days to motivate and light the fires needed to defend the planet.  But there’s an air of pessimism that inevitably arises from so much grim news. That pessimism eventually saps the life out of even the hardest workers.

Two scientists who figured out this problem more than a decade ago are coral reef ecologists Drs. Nancy Knowlton and Jeremy Jackson.  I watched their awakening over the course of several years when they were professors of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

By 2010 they were both starting to work to change the tone of ocean conservation from constant kvetching to focusing more on “where things are working.”  They launched a series of symposia around the title, “Beyond the Obituaries for the Oceans.”  Their feeling was, “We’ve read enough obituaries for parts of the ocean, let’s shift our attention to the pockets of success in saving the oceans.”

Nancy launched the hashtag for #OceanOptimism which rapidly gained popularity.   A couple years ago she then began spreading the theme to #EarthOptimism.  From there she took the idea to the top of the Smithsonian Institution, where she is now a senior scientist.  They got behind it in a big way, and voila …

THE EARTH OPTIMISM SUMMIT APRIL 21-23 IN WASHINGTON DC — YOU CAN ATTEND!

The plans are now set for a gathering of over 200 conservationists ranging from scientists to economist to lawyers to communications folks to tell stories of conservation success from around the world.  I’ll be one of the speakers.  And here’s the good news — it’s open to the public for a modest registration fee.

Actually, here’s the very best news — the event has a clear narrative.  Unlike too many gatherings these days where people don’t really know what they’re trying to say (they’re just angry) this event knows EXACTLY what it has to say.

What the organizers and all the participants have for a message is laid out clearly with ABT structure in the subtitle above.  In fact, you can even boil it down to a single word, reflecting a clarity of purpose that’s essential for people to dedicate their lives to a mission and remain inspired over time.

That word is OPTIMISM.

A friend who attended the Oscars complained to me, “There were so many amazing stories for the night, I can’t believe the only thing the media talked about was the Best Picture mistake.” Actually that was the ONLY real story, and that’s why it dominated everything. The starting point for understanding storytelling is to understand what is, and is not, a story.

A STORY NOBODY ASKED FOR

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY …

Rick Nelson, our wonderful Story Circles aficionado with US Fish and Wildlife Service likes to tell about his buddy in graduate school who, “always said he was gonna tell you a story … and then he never did.”  Let’s consider this basic dynamic for Sunday’s Oscar’s debacle.

An actress friend of mine called me yesterday to tell me about what she saw at the Oscars, which she attended with her husband. The first thing she said to me was, “It was such an amazing evening — there were so many great awards given out, great speeches, and great performances — I can’t believe the only thing the media is talking about is the big mistake at the end of it all.”

Well, I can believe it.

Everyone is indeed still talking about “the big mistake.”  It’s Wednesday and I just listened to Jim Parsons (who was in “Hidden Figure”) on a radio show. The host asked him if everyone was talking about the big mistake at the post-Oscars parties. He said, “Yes, of course, non-stop, you couldn’t quit referencing it.”

In fact it was a real story because there was a genuine real PROBLEM/SOLUTION dynamic to it. Nothing else in the evening — none of the awards, award speeches, performances, jokes — none of those things presented a real problem that needed to be solved, and especially not at that level of importance.  The result was there were no other significant stories to tell.

In “Houston, We Have A Narrative” I defined the word “narrative” as “the series of events that occur in the search for a solution to a problem” and explained how that is the dynamic at the center of a story.  Now, think of the Oscars evening in those terms and you begin to see why 100% of the major media coverage focused on “the mistake.”

THE BORING FACTS

Yes, there were lots of great awards given out and honors paid, but those are, by comparison, pretty much just facts — of interest to some, but not to the masses.  The one thing that interests everyone is THE STORY of what happened at the end.  A problem arose — wrong winner announced —  a solution was found — gave it to the right winner.  The story that interests everyone was THE SERIES OF EVENTS THAT OCCURRED IN THE SEARCH FOR THE SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM.

That was the only real story.  The media knew, the people involved knew it, and the general public knows it.  The rest, as Joe Friday used to say on Dragnet, is just the facts, m’am.